Trying to create this semi-translucent shell material like the ear disk in the reference photo but its blocking way too much light. I’ve tried every combination of transmission, subsurf radius and scale, thinning the geometry, blasting it with linked lighting that i can and it just wants to absorb everything. The only thing that kind of worked was hitting it with a linked backlight, but unfortunately the indirect reflections aren’t linked so it just scattered back onto the face. I’m an idiot when it comes to lighting and rendering so im not sure the proper way to approach this. I dont want to change the overall composition and lighting. I just want it to have that nice subsurf type glow that the ear does.
I don’t think the shell in the reference picture is backlit. Looks like all the light it gets is from the front/top.
However if you want more translucency, increase the sss radius or sss weight. The radius is in world units, the weight is a percentage of all radiance
Welcome!
Could you show an image of the material’s settings? The various settings to make a material translucent aren’t all compatible with each other and some require careful adjustments.
Hi thanks for the response. The reference isn’t one to one as im going for more of a studio setup. But you can see translucence in the top rim which i imagine should be achievable with backlighting similar to the ear. I’ve cranked SSS weight to 1 and radius to 100 and it doesn’t change anything. Im using random walk. I’ve also pushed the scale without noticeable effect. Dont know if maybe its an issue with the geometry…
You are using both SSS and transmission, but the two are mutually exclusive. If transmission is set to 1, SSS won’t be used at all, you have a glass material instead.
Now, that does pose the question of why a glass material is failing to be transparent. Maybe the number of bounces in the render settings?
My hero! I did not know that. I only cranked it while troubleshooting, but it was minimally for whatever reason before. Didn’t know it was completely shutting off SSS. Its working now. Not sure why the transmission isn’t working though. Bounces are 12. But i’m not going to trouble shoot that since subsurf was really what i was going for lol. Thanks!